Day Three

I am really tired this morning. After having got to bed late, my mind was on overdrive and I couldn't settle. I tried reading – I am on the second of Steig Larssen's Millenium trilogy - big mistake, far too exciting. So I made a cup of fruit tea and switched to Simon Singh's account of the attempts to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. There's a bit of a cross-over as one of Larssen's characters spends her time trying to solve the theorem. Anyway, I thought a book of mathematical formulae would send me off. But no! Whilst I understood the story (unfortunately gripping like a murder mystery), I just got frustrated that I could neither head nor tail of the formulae. Probably due to the fact that I was tired, but I admit that I didn't 'get' algebra when I was at school. Perhaps I still don't. I've also just bought a copy of Logicomix (I read an amazing review), a graphic novel that explains Bertrand Russell's long pursuit of the foundation of mathematics (1+1=2 (the academic life can clearly be really exciting!)) and the development of his paradox about the state barber (no, nor me either!) The jacket blurb describes it as a book about "...ideas, passions, madness, and the fierce struggle between well-defined principle and the larger good". Sounds just like Swansea Council. This is a gift for our grand-nephew (I think that's what he is) who is a self-confessed 'maths genius'. Perhaps when he's read it he can explain it to me – although most teenagers he's taciturn to the point of incomprehensible grunting, until he wants to be fed!

So bog-eyed and grumpy!

I have a quiet day today – nothing until this evening, when I have a party meeting. So I had hoped to get an early start of the email mountain – which seems to have grown overnight! However, that's gone off the rails as I've been rather involved in regards to the anti-fascist, anti-BNP rallies this Saturday.

One question I have been asked is why I became a councillor. The answer is as a result of a challenge.

My family had always been political, my parents were Welsh/Cornish-Irish/Aberdonian, left-wing Daily Herald, News Chronicle Liberals, both from non-conformist (in the wider sense, certainly, at the least, unconventional non-conforming) backgrounds. Essentially caring socially committed, boys clubs, children's homes, looking after neighbours (but then everyone did then), doing what they thought was right, good people. The Labour Party was a bit too far out, the Liberals were more acceptable. Curiously although it was my father who had the stronger opinions, it was my mother who was the most active on the ground. It would be unfair to say that "He talked & she did", but certainly my mother was the sort of committed activist that politicians like – always delivering, canvassing, regular attender at meetings etc. She was often asked to stand for the City Council (this is in Liverpool – I am a scouser in case you didn't know) but she always said no, she was a 'behind the scenes' person. A great pity because I think she would have been a great councillor and an excellent ward councillor. However, politically, it was a bit too wet for me as a teenager. I wanted something a bit more red-blooded and I tried to join the Labour Party – but what happened there is one of my 'dinner' stories – sorry.

Anyway, in default I went with them to the Liberals – not least as most of the members seemed to have rather pretty daughters and they had very good parties. This was interrupted when I became a Customs/Waterguard Officer and spent many years wandering around the UK. I finally settled in Pembrokeshire. I recall that about a year after my arrival I was canvassed in an election by a long-sitting councillor who was complaining that in all his 30 years or whatever on the Council, this was the first election he had ever fought – he'd always been elected unopposed. I found this remarkable, as in Liverpool there were elections every year and they were hotly contested. He thought that his having to explain himself to the electorate was outrageous. He certainly didn't get it – needless to say I didn't vote for him. He got elected anyway!

I wasn't impressed by him – nor by many of his colleagues to be frank. I used to moan to one of my elderly neighbours. He gave me short shrift, advising me that if I didn't like what they were doing and I thought I could do better then I should stand myself. And if I wasn't prepared to do that, I really should shut up! So after a couple of years of this, I did stand and was, surprisingly elected. And apart from a brief spell when I moved to Llandeilo (although even here I stood for Dyfed County Council – narrowly losing against the sitting candidate), I've been a councillor ever since, that getting on for 20 years (Do you know I'm not really sure, it certainly feels like it at times!). It does seem to get into your bloodstream.

Why do I do it? Well apart from wanting to make a difference (we all say that I know) I really enjoy it and I think I'm quite good at it (no doubt I'll now get disagreeable comments, but you cannot satisfy everyone and I recognise that I'm not everyone's 'cup of tea'). All my working life, my jobs have been to do with people in one shape or form (that's the jobs, not the people!) And I really get a kick out of helping and getting things done. I cannot speak for all of the 72 councillors on the Council but I believe that this is what motivates most of us. I am quite proud to be one of them, and I include the many dedicated officers in that as well (no doubt some readers will find this a bit naive or even pretentious, but it's what I feel). Whether its big things or the mundane, there is a definite 'kick' in making things better – although sometimes the 'kick' has to be a bit more physical. If there any of you who felt like I did – why not give it a try? You never know, you might win!